


Mountains

by Mendeia



Series: What Beyond (The Temple Steps Alight) [4]
Category: The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, The Sentinel
Genre: Adoption, Gen, Neurodiversity, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Arc 3, Brian Rafe told the SELF group about his little sister Angie.  Well, the time has come to bring her into the fold, but there's something unexpected that will change the deal for them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mountains

**Author's Note:**

> For all those who are not neuro-typical out there, you have all my love and respect forever.
> 
> Also, Brian Rafe and Henri Brown prove, once again, to be quietly awesome.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Simon? Uh, we've got a weird sort of little problem."

"No, Sandburg. Do _not_ tell me that," Simon growled into his phone. "Not today."

"Fine. I won't. How's the weather three hours away?" Sandburg asked blithely.

"Don't you start with me!" Simon threatened. "Fine! Just tell me what's going on."

"Okay. So, we finally got all the signatures and we were getting ready to move Angie and…well…"

Simon resisted the urge to throw something from his desk through his office window. "How hard can it be to load a nineteen-year-old girl into the van? And what the hell are Rafe and Brown doing? Getting ice cream?"

"They're trying to negotiate with her."

"She doesn't want to come?" Simon was surprised. "You told her all about the Sentinel thing, right? Didn't she believe you?"

"Oh, she believed me," Blair laughed. "She's good. She must have gotten used to some bad drugs at some point because she's got a really keen knack for telling hallucinations from reality. She can see spirit animals and she knows they don't come from whatever pills they had her on. No, it wasn't that."

"Then what's the problem? Do you need me to send Jim? Or Benton?"

"I don't think it'll help," Sandburg sighed. "Besides, they're both busy. Unless somebody tried to burn down the courthouse again?"

"Not this time. Ellison's stuck giving testimony," Simon snorted.

"And Benton's meeting with one of his foreign contacts. Even Race said not to interrupt them short of SELF burning down or one of the kids being abducted." Blair sighed again. "Look, there's an obvious solution here, but I just don't want to make the call all on my own, and Dmitri and Ivanna aren't picking up at the lodge."

"All right. Lay it on me."

"Angie wants to bring a friend along with her."

-==OOO==-

"Angie, listen, it isn't that we want you to abandon your friend," Brian said gently, sitting on the bed before the girl.

"But if I go with you, that's what I'll have to do!" she shot back, glaring at him from over her knees where she had drawn them up to her chest. "Melly's the only one besides you who's ever been nice to me!"

"Come on, baby girl," Henri squatted at the side of the bed. "Don't you think Melly would want you to get out of here? Go where you can learn how to control all this stuff? And not have to be scared anymore?"

"A'course she does! And she needs to come with me!"

Brian tipped his head. "Other than you wanting her with you, why does she _need_ to come?" he asked carefully.

Angie blinked at her brother. "Melly gets bad dreams. Really bad dreams. She screams and screams until the nurses have to drug her. But if I'm here, if I can get to her before the nurses do, they stop. I always hear her when the dreams start, but I don't always get out of my room in time."

Brian and Henri traded a wry look. They both knew that Angie had figured out how to jimmy the locks on the doors in the ward years ago, and they'd never bothered to dissuade her. She couldn't get through the electronic keypads that isolated the ward from the rest of the hospital, and she'd never gotten in trouble; they'd been fine looking the other way and leaving the girl some semblance of freedom. Apparently she had put that freedom to good use.

"I _promised_ her," Angie said with a sob climbing up her throat. "I promised her I'd take care of her!"

There was a tap on the door and Blair entered. "Me again," he smiled.

Angie managed a watery smile in return but didn't look up. "Hi Blair. That man sounded mad. But he didn't yell at you."

"No," Blair shook his head. "Simon worries about me, but he isn't angry. I just wanted his opinion."

"I didn't hear all of it," Angie admitted. "I'm not so good at listening far away and staying here without falling asleep and getting woken up by nurses later."

"Zoning out," Blair nodded. "We'll teach you how not to do that if you come with us."

"Not without Melly," she said stubbornly.

"I know. Tell you what. Can you take me to see Melly? I assume your brother knows her already." Blair looked to Brian who gave a nod. "I'd like to meet your friend, if it's okay."

Blair held out a hand and waited.

Angie considered the hand for a long while. Normally she avoided touch whenever possible. Sometimes even the pressure of clothing hurt until she scratched herself bloody. But even when it wasn't that, sometimes she just couldn't stand the idea of something on her skin. It made her feel twitchy and nervous.

But Blair was different. From the moment he'd walked in the room with Brian and Henri, whom she had taken to calling Henny much to her brother's delight, Angie had liked Blair. He didn't try to stare into her eyes when he talked to her like some people did. He didn't take offense that she didn't touch him or look at him. He didn't seem uncomfortable around her at all, in spite of everything she'd ever seen from nurses and doctors and visitors who all moved around her jerkily as though they turned to robots when they saw her. And Blair's voice was low and easy to listen to, and it soothed the spiking storm that took up residence between her ears when noise got too loud.

Plus, he had explained being a Sentinel to her, and he had a wolf that trotted beside him who was happily curled up on the floor by the closet with her little mountain beaver tucked into its side.

"Okay," she said. She reached out and took his hand, smiling shyly.

"Nice one," Henri said softly. "Took me a year to be able to do that."

"Blair's special," Angie told him firmly.

Brian grinned at her, the deep happy grin she had learned meant he was particularly proud of her, "Yes, he is."

Angie climbed off the bed and padded out of the room, not bothering with her shoes because they were too tight and the laces itched the tops of her feet. Blair moved at her side and did not let go of her hand, but he also didn't pull on it or try to help her along faster. When she stopped in the middle of the hall to listen, he stopped with her and waited, not asking any questions but letting her decide when to move again. Behind, Henri and Brian followed quietly.

Blair blinked as a brown blur appeared and disappeared outside the door to a room.

"That's Melly," Angie said.

Understanding washed through Blair and he allowed Angie to open the door without knocking. "Hi Melly."

"Hi Angie!" came a cheerful answer.

Blair studied the girl in the room carefully. She was younger than Angie – he'd put her age at 15 or thereabouts. And with the discerning eye of an anthropologist, he decided her most likely heritage was Latin American, but she could have some American Indian or something else playing into it from her bone structure. He had to blink again when she sprang unevenly from her bed for Angie to move in and hug her. Melly was missing a foot.

"This is Blair," Angie told her friend. "He knows why I can hear things and feel things nobody else can. You can tell him stuff if you want to."

Melly peered at Blair through too-old eyes and said, "I won't let you hurt Angie."

"I don't want to hurt Angie," Blair said honestly.

"I won't let you tell her she's broken," Melly warned with real passion, curling around the taller girl protectively and shifting their position so she was between Angie and the three men. "She's _not_ broken."

"Of course she's not broken," Brian said, slipping past Blair to face the girls. "Neither of you is broken. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just different."

Melly looked away from the detective. "Different is hard." She tried to sound angry but Blair heard the pain.

"I know it is," Brian said softly. "But it's okay. Everybody has mountains they have to climb in their lives, kiddo. Everybody. It's just that sometimes yours are inside you, and you lose your grip. You slide down into the valley inside. But you're not broken just because you got a cruddy mountain inside that's hard to climb. Neither of you." He looked to his sister, who met his gaze in a rare display of trust and smiled.

Blair looked to Melly. "I want to help Angie. I know more about why she is special than most people, and I can teach her to control those abilities. I can help her climb her mountain differently. There are people who make it easier for her, make the mountain doable in a way the doctors never imagined. But you already know that, don't you?"

Melly nodded once.

"What do you mean, bro?" Henri asked, crowding in the doorway.

Blair turned and smiled ruefully. "Well, it just got both more complicated and less. Melly's Angie's Guide."

-==OOO==-

It took some fast talking by the master of obfuscation, but eventually he got the inside information on Melissa Britton from the head nurse of the department.

"Abandoned as a little kid," he summarized to Brian and Henri. "Melly's been in and out of foster care but she keeps winding up back here because of her other problems. She's bipolar and also has Type I diabetes. When she first came into the system, they had to take her foot off because it was in such bad shape since her mom or whoever wasn't taking care of her. She's been a ward of the state ever since."

"And she's Angie's Guide?" Brian asked. "You're sure?"

"Oh yeah," Blair nodded. "They're not bonded yet – I have a theory that Melly isn't really old enough to handle it. But she's got a full spirit animal. Angie says it's a Boreal Owl. Anyway, it's tiny and it's always with her except when it's with Angie."

"How come she never told us about it?" Henri wanted to know.

"Probably because you couldn't see it yourself. They've spent a long, long time learning that even people with the best intentions will think they're hallucinating even when they know they aren't."

Brian patted Henri on the shoulder. "Don't stress it. I get it. Can't blame either of them."

Blair smiled to himself, knowing Angie was probably listening in and grateful that she could overhear her brother's easy acceptance and blameless trust. Both the girls had been through enough to deserve an honest discussion. He would have been in favor of sharing it with them directly and openly, but the nurses had said it was time for them to go to lunch and had escorted the men away so they could get the ward organized for mealtime. When they had been shooed away, Angie had been in the process of very carefully helping Melly affix her prosthetic foot, chiding her for going without it just because she was embarrassed that it squeaked.

"So what do we do now?" Henri asked. "Technically Angie's over 18, but because she's been declared mentally incompetent, you can force her to leave since you're her guardian. But I bet you don't want to."

Brian shook his head. "No way. It's her life. Her choice."

"And her choice is to stay with Melly," Henri said. "Great."

"Like I said, this makes things easier and harder at the same time," Blair said. "Easier because, since Melly's a Guide, I can invoke my DHS credentials and take over her case. She's a ward of the state. As long as I can charm her caseworker into accepting my authorization, I can put her into federal custody and get the DHS to handle the Child's Services part. Then we could legitimately bring her along."

"I hear a 'but' coming," Henri said, raising an eyebrow.

"You'd be right," Blair turned his gaze fully to Brian. "Even if I can do it _legally_ , I can't do it _ethically_ , Rafe. I can't whisk that little girl away from the help she needs and set her up at the lodge just like that. This is a girl who probably doesn't require institutionalization, but she needs regular visits to qualified doctors, both a therapist and a medical doctor to help her manage her diabetes. She needs someone who will make her a priority. She needs someone to help her finish growing up so she can be Angie's Guide. Angie's old enough to transition to life at SELF with some help. Melly would need a lot more."

"How much more are we talking here?" Henri asked, watching his partner's jaw work as he compulsively swallowed.

"Melly needs a family."

Brian was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was low and intent. "I'd do it, you know. For Angie. If she's her Guide, then Melly's as much my sister as Angie is. I'd do it. But I can't. Even if SELF helped out, I'm up to my eyeballs in debt from keeping Angie in this place. Nobody, even a judge in your back pocket, would give me custody. Not on top of having Angie. They barely let me keep her and she's my sister. They'd never give me an underage stranger."

"And she would need the formalized custody," Blair nodded. "She'd need someone who was her parent and friend and protector and guardian on paper as well as where it counts. She'd need the stability that the system doesn't provide but a legal document does."

"I know," Brian said. "I know. I've been around here so long, I've seen it in action. But they won't, not with me already being guardian to Angie…"

"I'll do it."

Brian looked at his partner with wide eyes. Henri stared back steadily. Both missed the small smile on Blair's face.

"Are you sure? I mean, I know you've been good to the kids here and you've really taken to Angie, but this…having a kid…" Brian ran out of words.

"Don't think of it like having a child," Blair interceded. "More like doing what Brian's been doing for years – being a big brother without any help from parents."

"Yeah, I know that," Henri said, never looking away from his partner. "And I can do it. The worst part about this whole gig was always the drive, you know? Commuting three hours to see Angie? That sucked. Being her brother and looking out for her? That wasn't the problem."

"You can't…this isn't like that time with the Harley!" Brian objected. "Melly – and Angie – are people! You can't take them on in a fit and get tired of them later on!"

"I won't," Henri said solidly. "I promise I won't."

"And he won't be alone," Blair added. "Melly would be up at SELF anyway. We haven't set up a schooling program yet, but Race and Benton home-schooled their kids for years and there's more than a few of the Sentinels or non-Sentinel family-members on-site who had some experience as teachers once upon a time. And we'd need to get it sorted out eventually anyway as soon as Benton starts looking for more kids like Angie. But, anyway, we'd all be in it together. Melly wouldn't be dependent only on Brown – she'd have you and me and Jim and the Quests and everybody."

"But she'd look to you first," Brian said. "And she'd need you the most."

"She'd look to you too, bro. And need you, too. You're her Sentinel's big brother. If Angie's like family to me now, Melly would be to you."

"Are you sure this is what you really want?" Blair asked, watching Henri very carefully.

The usually-jovial detective nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I am. This is what I gotta do. I know it."

"Good," Blair nodded also. "Because you're right."

"I am?"

"Yup," Blair bounced on the balls of his feet, smiling. "Can't explain it, but it's one of those Sixth things, I guess. Bai Ming told us that a Guide's power is to Know. And this time I Know that Melly belongs with you two just like Angie does."

"We're not gonna get a better endorsement than that, partner," Henri looked at Brian. "But it's your call. It started with you."

Brian suddenly smiled. "Never thought I'd be raising kids with you, Henny."

"Likewise," Henri grinned at Angie's name for him and slung an arm around his partner's shoulders. "But I think it's all Ellison's fault anyway. And Sandburg's. They started all this Sentinel stuff in the first place."

"Oh, absolutely, go ahead and blame me if it helps your egos," Blair shook his head smiling. Then he pulled out his phone and typed a message to Simon: _Better reserve a few more rooms – the family is getting bigger._

That done, Blair turned to head to the nurses' station and asked for a supervisor. Flashing his DHS badge, he politely requested that arrangements be made to contact Melissa Britton's caseworker, because he was about to put her in federal custody pending her adoption. Gobsmacked, the nurse on duty stared at him for a long moment before rushing to comply.

"You're both coming home with us, Angie and Melly," he said softly into thin air while he waited for someone to appear. "You're coming home and you're staying together and Rafe and Brown will look after you. And so will I. You're part of our family now, and the tribe takes care of its own."

Blair could _feel_ the rejoicing of the beaver and the little owl, could almost see them several walls away chasing one another around the ward's cafeteria heedless of the others trying to eat and delighting the two girls who laughed at something no one else could see. He didn't have to be a Sentinel to perceive the relief and hope that washed through the pair, both things that had been in short supply in their lives so far.

 _Those mountains better watch out_ , Blair thought. _Once we get you the right kind of support and family, nothing's going to keep you from helping each other get all the way to the top_.


End file.
